


What Comes After

by samariumwriting



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-14 23:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18487066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: As a journey must begin, it must also come to an end. But thoughts, emotions, and time all march on. How does it feel, when the tale closes?A series of pieces based on the end of each Chapter 4.





	1. Primrose

**Author's Note:**

> I'm late to the train for this game, but I sunk about 20 hours into it in the last three days to finish it off after not playing for about seven months and now I have a lot of feelings.

"What a vile man," Therion spat. Primrose couldn't take her eyes off Simeon, on the ground like that. He'd fallen towards her, when he died. She'd let him fall. She was glad she couldn't see his face, she'd had quite enough of it by now.

Primrose nodded. She didn't know what else to do. Perhaps there was nothing else to do. She'd been fixated on this for so long...so long. It had been the only thing on her mind, and now it was- it was dead on the floor in front of her.

"Perhaps I should feel some kind of sympathy for him," Primrose said. After all he'd said, she didn't know how to feel anymore. Or how she was supposed to feel about anything.

"Not a chance," Therion said. His voice was full of venom, but Primrose knew it wasn't directed at her. "He betrayed your trust. He...didn't you say your father died when you were a child?"

She nodded, and he made another noise of disgust. "Wish he would live again so I could kill him myself. What a sick fool. He didn't deserve any damn applause, let alone all the stuff he thought he was entitled to."

Primrose didn’t know what to say. She agreed, of course, but everything felt a bit...a bit far away at the moment. This whole experience had been incredibly taxing, and she was so drained. She leaned against the back of the chair Simeon had been sitting in, barely able to stand. “Perhaps we should move on,” Olberic suggested. Cyrus and Therion nodded their assent, and Cyrus offered her his arm.

“We’ll head back to the inn,” he said. “You can get some rest there. Much needed, I think.”

Therion went on ahead of them to the tavern to grab the others, leaving the three of them to make their way out of the theatre more slowly. It was surprisingly fairly easy to get out, despite how suspicious their group tended to make others. Cyrus simply explained that their travelling companion had taken ill during the show, and could they kindly be showed the exit? No one seemed to have raised the alarm about Simeon’s body just yet.

Ideally, they would have been able to move on from the town now the deed had been done. There didn’t appear to be any kind of military force in the town, other than any strength the actors could cobble together, but that didn’t mean that they were just going to get away with murder. Primrose could only be glad that the group had all realised that such an escape wasn’t feasible without even asking her if she needed to rest.

She supposed that, over time, she’d come to trust this unruly band of travellers. Their loud personalities, their strengths, their weaknesses, all the bizarre stories they had to tell (apparently being a scholar involved a lot of drinking and doing stupid things. She probably shouldn’t have been surprised by that one). And they’d come to know each other quite well, over all the time they’d spent together. The things they’d experienced.

Once they’d reached the inn, Primrose practically stumbled into bed, not even managing to change her clothes away from the outfit which probably had blood stains on it by now. After a few moments, she saw Ophilia get out of her bed, just across the room. “How are you feeling, Primrose?” she asked.

“Tired,” she managed. She was exhausted in just about every way possible right now. “I need to sleep. I can tell you what happened once I’ve got some rest, if you don’t want to ask one of the boys.”

“I want to hear it from you,” she said. “It’s your story to tell, your struggles. I’m sure everyone can wait until you’re feeling more up to it.”

Primrose nodded, managing a smile in her direction. Her eyes were already drooping, but Ophilia was crossing the room again, over to where they’d put all the travelling packs. “Stay awake for a few minutes,” she said. “At least get out of those clothes. They’re covered in blood.”

Primrose nodded, and sat up. She could tell the other two were awake, but out of tact they weren’t getting involved or asking any questions. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she could have asked for much better travelling companions. Even H’aanit, who initially came off as distant, never failed to show compassion, and Tressa’s general childish demeanour was always stripped away when seriousness was needed.

Ophilia brought over some comfier, cleaner clothes from her bag. “I don’t think there’s much salvaging these,” she said, a frown on her face as she examined the clothes Primrose had just discarded. “Maybe to patch up some other clothes. Do you want me to try and keep them whole?”

Primrose shook her head, gladly sinking back down under the sheets now she was in something more comfortable. Ideally, she would have been able to wash, but this late in the evening the water would be too cold anyway. Cleanliness could wait, she just needed to sleep now.

“I’ll give it a proper look over in the morning,” Ophilia said. After a moment’s pause, she pulled the covers up to Primrose’s chin and flattened them out a little. “You’re so brave, Primrose,” she said. “Sleep well.”

Primrose drifted off to sleep quickly. Every night since her father died, she had been afflicted with some kind of terrible dream. Customers in Sunshade that got violent when they didn’t get what they want, memories of her father’s death, fears about what would happen in the future, the ever-present figure of the men with the mark of the crow.

But that night, even though she’d just had an extra experience that could have added fuel to her nightmares, she didn’t have a bad dream, not in the slightest. Instead, she could feel the sun on her face as she sat in the gardens of her childhood home. There was no Simeon in sight, just the vast expanse of sky.

In the distance, she could see a group of people moving up the path. Humble villagers, scoundrels, soldiers, clerics, members of noble houses, scholars...huge groups of people. And in the dream, she stood and performed for all of them. There were no comments from men who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves, no one telling her she wasn’t good enough.

There was smiling, laughter, and compliments. There was brightness, and optimism, and a world full of opportunities for a young woman to seize. It was a good world, and a good future just waiting for her.

Simeon’s proclamation of doom and emptiness for her could go to hell; she was her own person, with her own desires and her own motivation. Maybe getting revenge for her father wasn’t the most fulfilling way for her to have spent this last decade of her life, but it wasn’t the only decade of life she was going to have.

But it had freed her from so much of her past that was hanging over her, and for that, she was glad. Finally, she was free.


	2. Chapter 2

“Ho, travellers!” a voice called to them across the tavern. All eight of them were sat around the largest table in the building, a huge spread out in front of them. Darius’ base had been full of various (inevitably stolen) goods so they felt comfortable treating themselves that night. It was good to have a proper victory under their belts.

In not-quite-unison, the group of them chorused back a greeting. As the man approached, Olberic moved an empty chair from the adjacent table for him to sit on. “What can we do for you?”

“Did you kill the bandit in the church?” he asked. The tavern went silent.

“No,” Therion said. Was Darius dead? He didn’t want to care, but he just felt like his heart had stopped. He’d left Darius alive on purpose. And yet...had he died anyway? “He ran away.”

“You see, the band of thieves left all sharpish and that,” the man explained. “So someone went down there to check everything was clear, see if there was anything left of what they’d stolen from us. And all that was left was a body.”

“Of a man with red hair?” Alfyn checked. The man nodded.

Therion almost couldn’t believe it. Darius was- no, actually, he could believe it. As if Darius had cultivated any kind of trust with his men. He’d just driven everyone away. Honestly, there hadn’t been any point in leaving him alive. It was almost inevitable that he would have died, somewhere along the line, if not down in that dungeon.

“We didn’t kill him,” Primrose said. “As Therion said, we knocked him around a bit and then let him go. We were retrieving a stolen item for a client. We got that and we left; no one was killed.”

The man regarded the group, curiosity written all over his face, but he didn’t ask. “Fair enough,” he said. “I’ll be on my way then. Have a good evening, all of you, and I hope you’re not giving the young lady anything too potent.” As he spoke, he smiled at Tressa, who smiled back.

“There’s nothing stronger than ale at this table, don’t worry,” Olberic said with a laugh, and the man returned it and moved away, back to where he’d been sitting before. The volume of the tavern raised a little as everyone returned to their conversations. Therion felt like he needed something a lot stronger than ale right now, but also he could already feel a headache coming on. Didn’t need to make it any worse.

“How dost thou feel?” H’aanit asked a moment later, not bothering to lower her voice too much. Every member of the table had their eyes fixed on him right now, anyway. Gods. Try as he might to keep them all away, they all knew how personal that encounter had been. They knew that when he spoke about the merits of trust, he was talking about them. And that was a bit mushy for him to think about right now.

“Fine,” he said, and when everyone looked at him with doubt in their expressions, his frown deepened. “I feel perfectly fine!” he objected. “He’s long in the past. Hey, now he’s even dead, and soon enough he’ll probably be buried. He doesn’t matter anymore.”

“If you’re sure,” Alfyn said. Gods, everyone was looking at him with so much concern. He liked and trusted them and all that, but they didn’t need to lay it on quite so thick. He was capable of dealing with his emotions, which weren’t quite as inclined towards fine as he would have liked them to be.

He didn’t know how he felt right now, but it definitely wasn’t fine. Exhausted, yes, but it was the end of a long day. That was fine. Expected. He’d felt good, before, knowing that he’d managed to prove to Darius that his bonds with others were worth so much more than all the money he could accumulate on his own.

But Darius was dead. And that had put a dampener on all of this that Therion couldn’t decipher. Her shouldn’t be sad that Darius was gone. Darius didn’t deserve the shit on the bottom of his shoes, let alone another chance at making people miserable.

Therion supposed it was better than having killed him himself. He’d given Darius a chance, and the gods had decided it wasn’t to be. He couldn’t do anything about that. So why did he feel regret, knowing Darius was gone?

Sure, he’d never be able to prove to Darius, properly, that he was wrong about trust. He’d proved it to himself, but Darius hadn’t believed it. And it wasn’t like he wanted to ever see Darius ever again anyway, but…

Therion sighed. He had a lot more feelings about this whole situation than he wanted. He didn’t want to feel this way. His feelings about it conflicted so much. He didn’t- he knew there wasn’t anything he could do to change what had happened, and he wasn’t sad that Darius was dead, he was just...there was some kind of negative emotion associated with Darius being dead and he didn’t understand why.

“Let’s finish up here?” Tressa suggested. The immediate agreement from everyone around the table told Therion that they’d all picked up on his significantly soured mood. “It’s been a long day, and we’re heading east tomorrow, right?”

Therion almost let out a sigh of relief as the attention returned to Ophilia, whose hands twisted in her lap. Northreach had practically just been a stopover on the way to Whispermill, both for preparations and to give her the time to think through exactly what she was planning to do when she arrived.

They wrapped up pretty quickly after that, heading across the street from the tavern to the inn. The mood was considerably darker than how they’d entered the tavern. Therion supposed he had to know about what had happened, because the people of the town wanted to know, but he couldn’t help but wish he didn’t know that information.

When they’d secured two rooms for the night, they blew out the candles almost immediately; everyone was tired, and even Cyrus had opted not to stay up reading whatever tome he’d picked up most recently. So Therion was left in darkness, thinking about everything that had happened over and over.

He couldn’t help but imagine Darius’ end. Probably stabbed in the back by his cronies. Maybe he’d given them an order too many, or they’d realised he had no real power over them. That someone could just waltz into their hideout and take everything from them. Maybe the wound Therion had given him had been fatal, after all, and he’d killed the man.

Therion had just...never wanted to stoop as low as Darius. He’d never wanted to kill him in the same way that Darius had tried to do to him. Logically, their partnership was over, and killing him was no great betrayal, but he still felt the overwhelming desire to be superior to him.

It was funny, almost; a thief, trying to take the moral high ground. When had that happened? There’d been days when one of his greatest desires was to see Darius dead. So why was he now tossing and turning in bed, unable to get the image of Darius dying alone out of his head.

He sighed. Of course it was the influence of his companions. Their smiles and laughter, their desire to improve the world through sheer willpower alone. They were the ones who, through their trust in him and their commitment to supporting him, made him want to be better than Darius. Yet, somehow, they’d failed. In a way.

No. Therion shook his head, forcing himself to lie still. They hadn’t failed, and he hadn’t failed. He’d given Darius that chance, but he’d fallen too far to make the most of it. He was dead, and no one else would suffer at his hands the way Therion had. That was enough for him.

It didn’t make it easier to sleep, nor did it quell the feeling in his heart that something had gone wrong. But he was closer to laying his worries to rest, and one day...one day he’d be able to lay his past to rest too. Not today, but one day, one step at a time. And now, he had people alongside him to help him do that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! :) if you have any thoughts, please leave a comment below, I'm happy to hear your thoughts and interpretations and we can both scream into the void about them.


End file.
